When Babe Fights Breast

by Claire Roy, London, Ontario

I found out very late that I was pregnant. We
were both out of work, living on unemployment insurance, and my mind and body
were elsewhere. Only my body remained to carry out the duties of motherhood, and
it was grossly underweight, dehydrated and tense.

Amelia was born in hospital with the usual:
epidural, episiotomy, forceps. She was presented to me while I was flat on my
back, legs in the air, being stitched up, in a hospital gown that tied at the
back. I managed to slip my arm out of the gown and breastfeed for maybe two
minutes. She latched on perfectly.

She was taken away and I asked “permission”
to get her after I recovered somewhat about an hour later. She couldn’t latch
on anymore.

A good nurse sat down beside me and we worked at
teaching Amelia to latch on again, for about twenty minutes. Baby was great and
happy for the next two weeks then the trouble began.

She breastfed every hour and a half, and it would
take her ten to twenty minutes just to latch on. She was desperately hungry it
seemed, yet she twisted and fought, turning her tiny head from side to side as
if she hated the whole idea of having to eat. Each session ended up with me
being exhausted, frustrated, and dreading the next feeding time.

I walked the floors for hours at a time, day and
night. She refused to accept anyone else holding her, even with her father she
went into hysterics.

Feeding times had to be immediately when she felt
hungry or else she would wind herself up into a beet red, choking, screaming
panic. That would take up to half an hour to calm, then another ten or twenty
minutes with the latching routine.

Amelia craved love and attention, not just food.
She instinctively knew I was not “there” for her in her beginning, and her
feelings of being rejected she reflected to me by rejecting my breast.

At two months, grandmother suggested I feed her
formula. I was tempted but the thought of shoving soybeans or cow’s milk into
what seemed like an already fragile digestive system kept me firm in my
conviction to nurse Amelia. The whole colicky, screaming, latch-on lasted
another three months. After that she still nursed every two hours, but found it
easier to latch on.

We gave up on the crib by the time she was six
months and kept her with us in bed. A good baby carrier also helped with sleep
times and in the end she weaned herself at eleven months.

In hindsight I know what happened. #1 I had an
overactive let down reflex and #2 was Mommy Panic. We’re all calmer today and
Amelia no longer feels left out. She’s a happy, beautiful, very sensitive five
year old who is exceptional at school. She has a little sister, born at home
with the help of a midwife. Sophie nursed every two hours, day and night until
she was 13 months. Sometimes the greatest challenges to breastfeeding are in the
mind and not the body.

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